Another atrocity in Kashmir

For no crime other than that he stood alongside a crowd demanding the restoration of electricity supply to his village, Altaf Ahmad Sood was shot dead on Monday. This appalling murder, at the hands of a Central Industrial Security Force picket guarding a power installation at Barnait, a village near Uri in Jammu and Kashmir, makes clear the casualness with which central forces reach for their guns against the people of Kashmir. In this case, multiple rounds were fired into the crowd, aimed to kill rather than to disperse the crowd. N.R. Das, the CISF chief, has said his men were “outnumbered” — a bizarre claim, given that there is no indication that the crowd was armed or seeking to attack the police. Chief Minister Omar Abdullah has done what he can to stop the tragedy in Barnait from spiralling into the kind of clashes that claimed more than 100 lives in 2010. Learning from past mistakes, he has met with the families of victims, named the guilty, and promised to ensure their prosecution. But these measures will not be enough.

The Barnait killing raises two issues that need to be addressed by New Delhi — not Srinagar. The first is the central government’s dogged refusal to sanction the prosecution of central security force personnel facing credible allegations of murder in civilian courts, thus fostering a culture of impunity. Last summer, for example, troops under the command of the north Kashmir-based 53 infantry brigade were alleged to have murdered three residents of Nadihal village. Even though the police found a mass of persuasive evidence that the men were killed in cold blood, the Defence Ministry has refused to sanction the prosecution of the military personnel involved. New Delhi is, instead, waging a legal battle to ensure that the suspects are tried in a military court — thus abusing laws meant to protect central police and military forces in the field from vexatious prosecution. Secondly, the central government’s unwillingness to ensure security force accountability is rivalled only by its indifference to enhancing security force competencies. Even though tens of thousands of personnel have been recruited into the central and state security forces, they remain ill trained — and, inevitably, trigger happy. National Crime Records Bureau data show that 154 people were killed and 669 injured on 1,155 occasions when police used firearms to control riots or other forms of mass violence in 2010. Like Mr. Sood, the victims were overwhelmingly poor: farmers, slum residents, and urban workers. More than 3,300 police personnel were also injured in these operations. Put together, the figures indicate that policing in India’s trouble spots is a mix of impunity and incompetence. Until New Delhi makes a serious effort to transform this situation, Mr. Sood will not be the last victim of a lethal cocktail.